


Just Like a White Blood Cell

by cecilkirk



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Ryden, Transphobia, fever era, trans!Ryan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:10:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6225274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilkirk/pseuds/cecilkirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Brendon stands up for trans boy Ryan while on tour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Like a White Blood Cell

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: transphobia, the mention of needles

Ryan hadn't seen it coming because he'd thought he was in too good a place.

The band had just taken off; they were on their first headlining tour. Things appeared to be looking up so far as the band's success went. Because Ryan had poured so much of himself into the band and in turn let it take up an enormous residence between his ribs, he felt full of hope. For the second time in his life, he finally felt he had control. He could shape his life as he wanted. He realized he had the power, the authority. But most of all, he realized he was worth it. He deserved to be successful.

He deserved to be happy.

Surrounded by a handful of friends who loved him deeply, he felt more on top of his world than ever before. He wanted nothing more than to keep this happiness flowing.

As he'd climbed his way into his adult years, he'd learned that happiness fluctuated on a daily basis, and sometimes working for it was necessary. He'd come to learn that even though he might not feel happiness in his palm, it was never as far past his fingertips as he used to think it was. He'd learned how to reach further, and he had allowed himself to do so.

It helped tremendously that his band was willing to help him reach, willing to remind him that he deserved it. The instance that best exemplified this was the one he was in right now.

"You sure about this? We have a show tonight. You could always do it tomorrow."

"No," Ryan said, unable to pull his eyes away from the needle in Spencer's hand. "I want to do it tonight."

"I guess I can't change your mind," Spencer said. He put his hand on Ryan's thigh, pushing up his boxers just shy of an inch to find the targeted muscle.

Ryan gripped the metal arm bar of the chair. Spencer pulled his hand back.

"Let's do this when you're less nervous, Ryan," he insisted. "Plus, I don't want you to be sore tonight."

Ryan pried his hand from the bar, setting the pair of them in his lap. "I really want to do this, Spencer. We still have most of a day before the show. I'll be fine."

"You gotta keep still," Spencer said.

Ryan clenched his jaw. He was frustrated at himself for wanting to do this so badly and was still unable to control himself. "I know. I'm trying."

Spencer's eyes float from Ryan's trembling fingers to the anxiety he tries to mute in his eyes.

"Hold on," he says, handing the needle to Ryan while he leaves the room. Ryan tries to look it over intently, as if he can make it more familiar and subsequently less painful. Apparently, it didn't matter that he had been taking hormones for close to a year, or that he got this injection once a month. Apparently, he would never get over the pre-shot jitters.

Spencer walks back into the room with Brendon, whose face turns an odd color--a blend of nausea from seeing the needle and embarrassment from seeing Ryan with his pants around his ankles.

"Just, like, talk to him. Take his hand," Spencer instructs Brendon as he takes the needle from Ryan. "Keep him distracted."

Ryan turns his head as far as he can toward Brendon to keep Spencer out of his peripheral vision. He looks into Brendon's wide, wide eyes, watching as Brendon tentatively intertwines his fingers with Ryan's. He can't help but laugh at Brendon's reaction.

"You're not the one getting the shot," Ryan says through a laugh.

"I think I'm the one who's more afraid of needles."

Ryan grins, and Spencer takes this opportunity to do it. He squeezes Brendon's hand but Brendon squeezes back, harder. Ryan can't bring himself to look away from Brendon's eyes, so he doesn't; they hold each other's gaze for longer than a minute, longer than the moments Spencer uses.

He won't turn his head back, but he can hear Spencer offering some kind of gratitude and praise as he presses a band-aid to his skin. Ryan carefully pries his fingers from Brendon's, breathing a laugh when he realizes how tight he'd been holding them.

"Sorry," he says, smiling. He puts his hand on his thigh, the one that remained bandage free. His fingers still have some residual trembling and he tries to expel it by standing and pulling his sweatpants back on.

"No, no, don't be sorry," Brendon says. "It's totally fine. I couldn't--I couldn't do that alone."

Ryan looks down at where Brendon remains seated. He grins at the thought of a more nervous Brendon with a kind of peace--the knowledge that if Brendon were in his shoes, he'd be just as well off as Ryan was now. "I believe that," he says lightly.

"No, really," Brendon says softly, pointedly. He looks down at his own previously knotted hand as he speaks, stretching fingers to alleviate the remains of stress. "You're very brave, Ryan. You find out what you need and you chase it mercilessly. That's really admirable."

Ryan feels a blush complementary to Brendon's bloom in his cheeks. His feet feel miles away. "Thank you," he says quietly.

He watches Brendon give a curt smile and leave his apartment. He can't stop himself from smiling.

 

 

 

For as deeply and often Ryan felt on top of his world, there was always something to bring him back down. Humility was healthy--he knew that--but sometimes it felt less like a push down and more like a swift kick to the back of the knees. They were the supporting band for someone he had never heard of, and this made him sad as opposed to humble. If anything, he felt a small absence of hope and the encroachment of progressive stagnation. Nevertheless, he tried to keep these thoughts to himself, to minimize how he felt. He tried to exist slowly, quietly, letting it pass before it could take him under. This was not rare, but it was rare when  humility crossed the line into humiliation. This, Ryan found, could drag him under much more easily.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Ryan blinks, completely taken aback. He freezes mid-motion as he throws on a wrinkled flannel. "What?"

"That's mine," the vocalist for the headlining band barks. He takes a step toward Ryan, holding out his hand for Ryan to place it in.

"Oh, sorry," Ryan says, peeling it off quickly. "I thought it was mi--"

"Yeah," he sneers, snatching the shirt from Ryan's hand. "I'm fucking sure you did."

Ryan's brows furrow. "What is your deal? What did I do?"

"You didn't need to do anything, pansy." He balls it up after looking it over, like he couldn't deign to wear it because it had passed through Ryan's fingers. "Go put on your makeup, or whatever the fuck you slather on your face."

Ryan frowned at this, but it didn't particularly bother him. He didn't let it. "Yeah, okay," he says under his breath, turning away.

"What was that?" the singer demanded.

"Nothing, nothing," Ryan says, hand floating to the door frame as he prepares to leave. He feels as buoyant and peaceful as he can, trying to mute the swirls of sadness between his thoughts.

"You think we don't know," he says evenly.

Ryan stops, toes just shy of an inch in front of the threshold.

"What?" he asks, turning around. Instantly, an embarrassed blush fills his cheeks. Instantly, nausea knots his stomach. Instantly, he regrets saying anything.

The singer drops the shirt at his feet. "You think we don't know you're a fucking fraud."

Ryan clenches his jaw, tightly, composing his thoughts before he speaks. "I am not a fraud," he says slowly. He can't help but hear that his voice sounds flimsy.

The singer walks right up to Ryan, their noses just shy of a few inches apart. Ryan can nearly feel the singer's breath seep into his pores.

"Do you really think dressing up a certain way and forcing people to call you a certain name means anything?" he whispers.

It's the volume of his voice that tears Ryan apart--he doesn't care if anyone hears. He just wants to hurt Ryan.

"Do you  _really_ think that changes who you are?" he continues. "Do you really think that can absolve you of the freakish person you are to be like this, to  _want_ to be like this?"

Rising in his ears is the sound of blood rushing, flooding, pounding. He can think of nothing to say; nothing he could pull out of himself would be enough. It would never be enough. He feels tears prick the back of his eyes, but he can't look away.

"Fucking disgusting," the singer spits. "Can't believe a tranny was allowed to come with us."

Ryan cannot unhinge his jaws. He drops his eyes, quickly wiping the back of his hand across them. Shame burns dark and contagious in him, igniting all the crevices he had wanted to keep dark for the rest of his life. Hideous but completely, completely familiar thoughts begin to flood in his mind, filling ravines he thought he'd made bridges across years ago. He tries to fight back and drain these ravines ( _You are not a fraud, you are fine just how you are, there is nothing wrong with you_ ) but he can't believe it, he can't believe any of it, and his chest tightens and--

"What's going on?"

Ryan sucks in a deep, erratic breath at the sound of Brendon's voice--relief, even if uncomfortable.

"What the fuck is going on?" Brendon says louder, stepping toward the singer as he backs away from Ryan. Ryan doesn't hear what they say, even though Brendon yells, even though the volume of their words ring in his ears. All he can hear is his own thoughts. They create a dense, hollow space between his ribs, something close to claustrophobia around his heart.

He feels uncomfortable enough to rip off his own skin. He feels hopeless enough to know he doesn't deserve that kind of freedom.

And even after the singer leaves and Brendon is talking softly to Ryan, he doesn't hear anything. No spoken word penetrates the fog of his embarrassed and self-loathing thoughts until Brendon touches his shoulder.

"What?" Ryan asks.

"I asked if you were okay," Brendon says softly. He peers into Ryan's eyes, not to dig, but to look. He wants to know what Ryan isn't telling him, but he won't yank it out.

"Yeah," Ryan offers, swallowing away the tightness in his throat. "I'm good." He drops his chin. He can't look at Brendon.

"Don't worry about what that guy said. He's an asshole."

Ryan says nothing. He can barely breathe around the knot in his throat.

After a moment, Brendon lets his hand fall down Ryan's arm and find his fingers. "You're fine how you are. You're perfect. Please don't pay what he said a moment of your thoughts. He doesn't deserve it." Brendon intertwines their fingers. Ryan notices how familiar how well his fingers fit between Brendon's.

"You didn't deserve that. You never will."

Ryan feels the air pulled from his lungs. It's these handful of syllables that put him over the edge--the edge of everything he was trying not to feel, everything he had ever felt, everything he had wanted to feel. He can feel himself crying hysterically for a moment before laughing, the tears still streaming down his cheeks as warmth and lightness begin to color his ribs. He wipes his eyes again, slowly, carefully, using his thumbs and taking his time. Brendon watches, unsure of how to react, and Ryan laughs at this, too.

"Are you...okay?" Brendon asks.

Ryan nods, grinning. "Yeah. Yeah, I am. I just really needed to hear that." He sniffs, running his hand through his hair to expel leftover nervous energy. "Thank you."

"No problem, Ryan," he says. "I just want you to be at ease. You deserve to be comfortable. You deserve to be happy."

With this, Brendon gives Ryan one last grin and one last touch of the shoulder before leaving to warm up for the show.

Ryan feels a strange mix of destruction and sturdiness within him, like the halting of a demolition. He's keenly aware of the damage that's been done, but he is also aware of the people he has around him to help him. He doesn't need to face his life alone anymore. He deserved the friends he had.

He interlaces his fingers together, studying how they fit with symmetry but not as perfectly as they fit with Brendon's hands. He ponders why nature makes complicated creatures. He wonders why he is the way he is. He wonders why he had ever wished he was someone else when the person he is got to be where he stood. Through the walls he can hear Brendon singing. He wonders if time would ever make him feel luckier for being friends with Brendon Urie.

 

 

 


End file.
